Tap Dance Widows Club at Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium

WHO: Creative Director/Choreographer: Louise Reichlin
Visual Artist: Audri Phillips
Performers: Jill Elaine Collins, Natalie Ellis, Katie Mcculla, Emily McGuire, Coree McKee Gonzalez, Eve Metsranta, Mcknnly Moren, Jestina Mundy and Louise Reichlin

ABOUT:- Tap Dance Widows Club is "Spectacular, moving, uplifting!" Past & present meet for an eclectic celebration of life in Tap Dance Widows Club, a 50' film / live production that tells a story of the love of three performers for their late husbands and the bond it created between them. "The interweaving of time, of distinctly different worlds through both video and dance, makes this piece not only unique, but deeply touching." exploredance.com. The production is free to the public.

HISTORY OF TAP DANCE WIDOWS CLUBTap Dance Widows Club, an innovative flagship work by Louise Reichlin & Dancers, ignites and brings together multiple dance forms in a unique multimedia piece using the power of Dance; an inside story from 30's Hollywood to now is presented.

Louise Reichlin (widow of Alfred Desio), Loretta Zerby (widow of Jon Zerby), and Katherine Hopkins-Nicholas (widow of Fayard Nicholas) met to share memories, photos, and videos of their well-known husbands. Their conversations about moving forward without their husbands' physical presence are both hilarious and moving; this became the audio for this transformative work.

After grieving for the loss of a loved one, we accept the richness that person has brought to our lives. The work is part of The Baggage Project suite that includes live dance combined with user and artist-generated multimedia that explores our changing perception of death, and the positive baggage we carry with us when a loved one is no longer corporal but still present. Louise was inspired to create the work after the death of her husband Alfred Desio.

Besides the film/live production at the Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium at 7:30 pm, a short preview and Q & A about the production will be presented by Louise Reichlin at 10:30 am and a tap class at 11am, at the Carlsbad Senior Center, both free to the Community. The Center is at 799 Pine Ave, Carlsbad, CA 92008. The Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium is at 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad, CA 92011ABOUT

LOUISE REICHLIN & THE COMPANY: Since 1979, Louise Reichlin & Dancers, non-profit name - Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers, has created works reviewed as "wildly theatrical & fun" and "wonderfully spirited with a zest for life". Acclaimed for both Family and pure dance/theatre programming, featured currently are narrated dance multimedia works The Patchwork Girl of Oz, The Better To Bite You With, and from the fall of 2012 Tap Dance Widows Club and the Baggage Project series. More recent works include Invasion, A Jewish Child's Story, a reimagining of Urban and Tribal Dances, and Reboot! Reboot!, all chosen for multiple festivals and presentations. Louise Reichlin & Dancers burst into the public eye with their first performance at the Anson Ford Theatre when "Reichlin created a sensation with The Tennis Dances" (Dance News). Over the years she has continued to examine our society from its most primitive nature to the emergence of the information age with The E-mail Dances in 1996. Through multiple performances for the 23rd Olympiad, a summer series at the LA Zoo, touring the US and Mexico Reichlin has consistently and continually created "probing and provocative" works (Dance Magazine) enjoyed by all ages. Her work illuminates life with reviews like "Before a triumphant finale, a world and its history have passed before our eyes, thanks to Louise Reichlin." (Los Angeles Times)

Louise Reichlin, Director and Choreographer, began her career in NY in concerts & Broadway, and has performed and choreographed throughout the USA with her choreography also seen in China, Taipei, Mexico, Sweden, and Guatemala. Since 1972 she has worked from her LA base, founding LOS ANGELES CHOREOGRAPHERS & DANCERS (LA C&D), the non-profit base of Louise Reichlin & Dancers in 1979. Since 1995, most of her concert works also include multimedia. In 2012, Reichlin was one of 7 national artists selected to present her creative impulse behind her work Tap-Dance Widows Club for the closing portion of the Dance USA conference called Vision 20/20. Reichlin also is Executive Producer & Dance Director for the annual San Pedro Festival of the Arts. Louise has been a National Performance Network (NPN) artist also receiving an ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, and more recently the Bruce Geller Memorial Prize for the creation of A Jewish Child's Story. Her company currently receives multiple grants from the CA Arts Council, the Los Angeles County Dept. of Arts and Culture, the City of LA Dept of Cultural Affairs, and Culver City/ Sony.Additional accomplishments include, a Milestone Dance Co. Horton Award, the Gary Bates Award by the Horton Awards Committee for creativity, sustained professional achievement, and service to the community, multiple Horton choreography nominations, a Faculty Research/ Innovation Fund Grant for a choreography and performance project from USC for the development of Celtic Suite, and the CyberSpace Media Access Award for Production/ Collaboration for The E-Mail Dances. Reichlin is the founder and publisher of the web publication SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DANCE DIRECTORY, 1996-present. It includes links to 699 professional dance companies in Southern California. See the company web site www.LAChoreographersAndDancers.org for more about the company and more than 100 works, and www.triartSP.com for the annual festival the company produces.

Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers for many years also included the company Zapped Taps (tm)/ Alfred Desio. Desio was the inventor of Tap-Tronics (tm), electronic tap, used in the film TAP. Reichlin and Desio were married as well as artistic partners for 39 years; after he died in 2007, she was inspired to create THE BAGGAGE PROJECT, including Tap Dance Widows Club.

Audri Phillips, Visual Artist, created the media for THE BAGGAGE PROJECT. Phillips is a pioneer of using digital art in post experimental film work. She has worked for over 25 years as a visualist/3d and immersive artist in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles on feature films, games, ride films and commercials. Phillips also created the media for Reichlin's Mourning Light, where only one of the dancers is real, the others memories of those who have passed on, additional media for Reichlin's Remembrance, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, and the electrifying animations for Invasion.